From Turtle on the Trail, Day 13

posted by Sarah McLain | 13sc
September 15, 2015

September 3rd, 2015

Our campsite is an outdoor school project. A cat from the neighboring house chose to sleep curled up in my sleeping bag. Then it was trying to paw at my face to wake me up. It started using its claws, so lifting it up and pushing it through the flap that I had left open for the little bugger to get out whenever it got bored; I dropped it on the ground.

After a few minutes there's door closing noise, and I shuffle on my clothes and head towards the van. I play "Fly me to the Moon" to wake everyone up. We have a big day today, because this place would soon be flooded with charter school students. I am feeling abject fear.

Barry slaps me on the shoulder and compliments me on the entertainment. I ask him not to slap me on the shoulder and forget to thank him for the compliment. I am super tense, and hope he will forgive my tensity.

And then Emmalyn and I choose to rest this day to prevent injury and further injury and the hike goes on while we zoom off to a possible future section of the hike. Today Grace leaves us and there are many travelers at the fast food place where we drop her off to meet her ride. We give Grace hugs goodbye and she walks off into the sunshine.

Meeting the regional botanist cool title name technician or something of the Umpqua National Forest was cool. I learn the word Pyrocumulous. She told us about burns we would walk through if we take a certain route.

I spend the afternoon moaning in pain from my car sickness in the backseat as Alex zooms around the turns and spirals of backmountain roads. The ups and the downs and spinning gravity illicits gutteral grunts and groans from the back of my throat.

Since this is a rest day, a poem.

Day 18

The scorpion moment

That prick of a painful idea.That spreading mass of massLike a sermon, or speech; a lieThat stays. Is folly and farce. And a cryThat this service ends fast.

But it is a systemic, histerical endemic, perhaps pandemic.And oh, how the pains,The painsThat spread like a blood clot or stain.When if we allow it to remain,We will be begging for the rain.

It is a needle tug from the skinThat draws the rush of crimson finish.An innoculation from future toxins, aers and vanities.Because the true stine is not of not knowing,Nor of being kind, if not in kinf, to those kind of things.But of knowing,And not doing anything.